a heavy heart to carry
by thelightningstrike
Summary: His heart feels like lead once more. Mal/Cobb.


**A/N****: **I saw Inception yesterday and was completely spellbound, it's one of the best films I've ever seen. I loved the acting and the characters- I knew I had to write something for it, so here it is. I hope you like it. Title borrowed from Florence and the Machine's amazing song, Heavy in Your Arms, which I think is absolutely perfect for Mal/Cobb.

a heavy heart to carry

"I hate keeping you here," he says, smoothing a thumb across her cheek. "But I can't let go of you."

"Then don't. Choose me, Dom, _please_. Don't keep me locked in these memories." She reaches for the knife- he hadn't realised it was there. "It could be... so easy. We'd be together."

Cobb shakes his head. "I'll just wake up, Mal."

She puts the knife back down. "Please." She's crying now.

He shakes his head again. "James and Phillipa. Our children. I _can't_."

Her hands form fists. "They're _here_, Dom. Don't you see? We're all here but you." She looks past him and he follows her gaze to the children playing on the floor. She whispers: "You could see their faces again."

"I couldn't, Mal. This is just a memory. They're-" he struggles, "projections."

"Well then I must be too," she says.

He looks down, his hand closing around her wrist.

"Come to us," she murmurs, "we're waiting for you."

He shakes his head and looks up at her, tears in her own eyes now. "No." He sees the heartbreak in her eyes; sees her hand close around the knife before she drives it into his heart.

A second later he wakes up, his head falling into his hands. He wipes the moisture from his cheeks and reaches for his totem, he spins it and it falls in a few seconds onto its side. He sighs.

x

He can't look down, he can't. He can't move. He can't go backwards, into the room they were supposed to be celebrating in, or forwards, to his death. He manages to push Mal from his mind long enough to think of James and Phillipa and this allows him to fall backwards through the window- the broken glass on the floor crunches against his back, the white rose petals rise and fall again.

"Mal!" The single syllable is ripped from his lungs- he pulls himself to his feet and rushes to the door. The staff elevator is nearest- rusty and rickety it firmly locates itself in his subconscious. He rides it to the bottom and stumbles out silently, tears streaming down his face as he staggers out of the building via the staff exit.

Mal is flat on her back on floor, a leg sticking out almost gracefully. The pool of blood surrounding her head is the only thing that proves she is dead and not hiding in her subconscious. He has drifted closer almost without realising, arriving at her head sooner than he thought he would. He touches her face; smoothes a thumb across her cheek; whispers goodbye.

Then he flees, and of course, of course, _of course_, he looks back. She is the love of his life: how could he not?

x

"How did they meet?" Ariadne asks. She and Arthur are stood in the warehouse, watching Cobb "experiment". Even though Arthur doesn't know exactly what Cobb does in his dreams, he has an idea, so he knows who Ariadne is talking about.

"They were in the same class- the one you were taking." Arthur says, and laughs at Ariadne's expression. "I suppose you were expecting me to say that he fell in love with her after infiltrating her subconscious. In reality they just- fell for each other, as easily as if they were born to. The Extraction came after. They trained together."

"Was she as good as him?"

Arthur looks at Cobb. "She wouldn't try Inception, so we'll never know."

x

"I had a dream last night," Cobb says, taking Mal's hand.

She raises an eyebrow. "Deliberate?"

"No, a real one."

"What happened?" she asks, interested. Their walking pace slows and they come to a halt in the middle of the Parisian bridge they are walking across.

"I dreamt... that we grew old together."

Her face softens into a smile and she cups his face in her hands, kissing him before pulling back to just look at him. "What were we like?"

"An adorable old couple," he says, his own hands finding her face. "But that isn't why I told you."

She waits.

"I want my dream to become a reality," he says, and kisses her, then presses his forehead to hers. "So will you marry me?"

He is close enough to see tears well in her eyes and she nods, so he kisses her again.

"I love you," she whispers.

He smiles and wipes a tear from her cheek with his thumb. "I know."

x

After Mal's death his heart feels heavier- it is yearning to be reunited with its counterpart and only in his dreams, when she's there, as real as memory, does it lighten. He watches her on the beach with James and Phillipa, talks to her in their home, revisits the room with the window- revisits and revisits despite knowing that not a single thing can be changed.

Then he is woken up, and his heart feels like lead once more.


End file.
